Thompson’s Lost Plimsole

Part 22

The Headmaster had been down at the police station giving his account of the business at the old chapel and had been advised by the Inspector that a map had been found on one of the prisoners.  It indicated the site of the supposed treasure that was believed to have been buried by the Knights Templar at the time of the dissolution of their order. The old map was laid out before the Headmaster and it showed the grounds of the school with the chapel circled and an X marking the spot where the altar would have originally been. After a very quick perusal, Mr Davies agreed that the paper looked authentic, but something about certain sections of the writing peaked his interest. He was sure that he’d seen that writing before and quite recently, but, where?  Mr Davies hadn’t even known of the existence of a map until this moment.  The map was grubby and looked as if it had been unfolded and folded numerous times. The edges of the map were tattered, and the thick heavy paper looked as if it had been torn from an old book.  There were small sections missing and it was heavily creased and stained. However, even though most of the map was annotated in old French, there was one section, that to all appearances, looked as if it had been written in semi-literate modern English. Once again, the Headmaster asked himself the same question, where had he seen this writing before? This observation was definitely going to haunt the Headmaster for the next few days and nights. “We took this map off the little bloke,” said the Inspector, “he had it secreted down the back of his trousers”. Mr Davies had been tracing his finger across the map until this revelation, he quickly withdrew his digit and wiped it with his handkerchief, whilst making a mental note to ask Mrs Davies to boil the handkerchief at least twice at its next wash.  The Inspector continued, “It took four of our finest to search him, what with him constantly lashing out with his feet and hands. I was wondering, Headmaster, have you ever tried to put a nappy on a squirming baby?” “Er, well, no, I haven’t”, replied Mr Davies. “Was that what it was like when you were searching the little man?”  “No, Sir, it wasn’t”, the Inspector replied. “It’s just that my daughter is bringing her baby round this evening for me to babysit while her and my Mrs go off to watch a show at the theater. The wife always took care of those sort of things, so I never really got the hang of it. I just thought that you, as a married man, might have had some experience in these matters. I mean, with the little bloke we just used fists and truncheons, but you can’t really do that with a baby, now, can you?”  

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